Nice, very shiny, interesting, out of the ordinary. An extraordinary person. Almost unreal.

ChrisTingley

Chris Tingley, MEng (Hons) MIET MBCS.

So, you wanted to find out a little more about me? Well, your in the right place! My CV is also available for download
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I suppose that I should start this passage by explaining how bad I am at writing things like this! I hope that by informing you of this at an early stage, you will be able to bear with me, I promise not to go on too much. As this will no doubt be read by any future employers trawling my website; I should start with a précis...

I consider myself to be extremely hard working, adept and innovative in my work, strategic and focused in my approach to work and diplomatic and tolerant with co-workers. I take pride in my appearance and the work I do. Outside of the working environment I find it equally important to relax and unwind as well as keeping myself fit. I spend my free time with friends, playing music, cooking and regularly playing squash, badminton and golf.

I have worked in a series of different environments, from the factory floor to the office (admittedly the later being the preference!). I have mainly been employed in small companies (under 15 employees) and enjoy working in this type of environment very much. I currently work for workbooks, a SAAS start-up as a web applications developer, a position I also held at my last company. Prior to that, I have worked as a creative developer at a creative media agency and a marketing consultant at a software services company.

Now on to more important things, music! Jazz lies at the root of my life and to fuel this obsession, less than a couple of years ago I was part of a small six piece jazz band based in Reading, the Blue Roosters (old website available here). You could often find us gigging here and there. Unfortunately, since the members of the band were fellow students at Reading, we have all since parted our separate ways. I look back on our three years together as a very special period of my life and the band gave me the opportunity to play with some very talented musicians. I write music as a predominant hobby, some tracks of which you may have been lucky enough to hear being performed by the band! Currently I am playing in the latin four-peice El Camino.

My academic life has been; and is fairly focused around computing. My degree combined two of the most fascinating subjects, namely Computer Science and Cybernetics.

I have been in Reading for coming up to 9 years now and attended the university for the first five years of those. The first year of which was spent doing an Electronic Engineering Foundation year as a result of my A level grades, how should I say... not being quite as expected! After successfully completing the first year I reverted to my original plan and started the degree I had always wanted. The first year was one of the best years of my life and as a result I strongly encourage any student who is focused on a degree to keep at it and not to give up.

The next three years were spent continuing my degree whilst living with my old housemates who at various points were Mark (www.foylesystems.com), Rich and Rosie (www.futurei.com), Tim, Dave (www.davidkellas.com), Luke (www.lukesmith.net), Derek and the two Matts. After that I lived for a year with my long term friend Catherine in a lovely little house near the town center. In 07 I decided it was time to find a place of my own and moved in with myself!